Specifically his remark that it was “too early to expect IBM to have coherent plans for what to do with its (re Emptoris’) services procurement product.”

I of course did not agree with the totality of Jones’ position as it appeared he was suggesting that “acquisitions such as the one made by IBM when they acquired Emptoris are largely intuitive and representative of a nebulous fear of falling behind as opposed to being a reflection of a deliberate, forward thinking strategy.”

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by Emptoris and Procurement Leaders, with a supplier lifecycle management (SLM) case study from The ABB Group. You can view an on demand version of the event by clicking here. ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. In 2010 they had $32B in revenue. As a 120 year old organization, they were decentralized with five divisions.

This week’s featured event was presented by Sourcing Interests Group and Emptoris (an IBM Company). The main speaker, Mitch Plaat, is Con-way’s VP of Procurement and CPO and has been with the company for 22 years. He has overseen quite a transformation, starting six years ago with the decision to engage Emptoris for help in the form of solutions and services.

I have a background in services, both professional and otherwise, and this is always an interesting topic. In my opinion, the most important take-away from the event is that more companies are breaking down the wall and not only addressing services spend but having success. Although there are complexities with services like legal and marketing that don’t exist with straightforward services like facilities maintenance or contingent (temporary) labor, procurement groups are more than capable of handling those complexities just like they have done with complex materials spend.

BMP viewed Sourcing Interests Group’s recent webinar, “Uncovering the Telecommunications Spend Treasure Trove” Presented by Emptoris, on February 22, 2011 and took the following notes.

We haven’t found the archived copy posted on either SIG or Rivermine/Emptoris’ websites yet, but if you are sourcing or managing telecom category spend, there are several other webinars and a series of whitepapers available on Rivermine’s website. (Emptoris announced their acquisition of Rivermine on January 6, 2011)